(Spill-O's Dubious Advice)

A sneering truant from the wheel of life; Spill-O, in his recreational despair, skips family functions, hot showers and clean clothes, and then blames poetry.

“We’re just haunting this world until we overturn our convictions,” he says, holding onto the wall. “The world, is a consequence, like the freestanding throat of a vanished volcano.”

A book about the fifth dimension rests in his pudgy hands.

“Once you submit to procreation, you can’t honestly argue with anything. You can’t get drunk as you need to be at a Marriot on an expense account.”

Eyes bagged, mouth uneven, Spill-O doesn’t look so good.

“No one will exile you. You have to exile yourself,” he slurs.

Colin Dodds grew up in Massachusetts and completed his education in New York City. His poetry has appeared in more than a hundred fifty publications, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. The poet and songwriter David Berman (Silver Jews, Actual Air) said of Dodds’ work: “These are very good poems. For moments I could even feel the old feelings when I read them.” Dodds is also the author of several novels, including WINDFALL and The Last Bad Job, which the late Norman Mailer touted as showing “something that very few writers have; a species of inner talent that owes very little to other people.” And his screenplay, Refreshment, was named a semi-finalist in the 2010 American Zoetrope Contest. Colin lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife Samantha. You can find more of his work at thecolindodds.com.